Pacific Palisades

A little over a week ago, I explored the Pacific Palisades Conservation Area.  It is a fairly large tract of land (695 acres) right outside Pacific, Missouri.

Two words: deer tracks.  They were everywhere.  Literally.  At no point could I look around and fail to see deer tracks around me, usually a lot of them, and mostly quite fresh.  There must be a sizable heard of deer roaming around there.  If you are a bow hunter, this seems like it would be a great place to hunt (deer hunting at this CA is restricted to archery methods only).

I also saw quite a few turkey tracks.  I have held back from getting into turkey hunting, but I will eventually.  Since there are no special restrictions for turkey hunting at this location, and because it is so close to St. Louis, I suspect it will be over-run with hunters during turkey season.

The main part of the area is cultivated fields, which are being groomed to encourage a healthy dove population.  North of this is a wooded area that is marked on the map as containing “sand/gravel pits”.  These so-called pits are actually an inlet from the Meramec River, and with the water as high as it was, they were impassible except for one narrow spillway.  I did a lot of back-tracking in the process of discovering this.  I will have to come back sometime when the water is low.  However, this gave me an idea.  If the water is high during hunting season, I could bring a boat and put into the water at the boat ramp on just the other side of the river, and then I could float right into prime hunting forest, noiselessly and effortlessly.  That is, if I had a boat.

I may have to consider buying a good canoe.  Ideally, one that I could also use at Howell Island.